I don't care if you're leading a Fortune 500 company, a school, a ball team, or a volunteer organization you signed up for last Tuesday. If you're leading anything — this is for you.
Dr. Layne Dillard sits down with the leaders who've been in the trenches — Top Gun pilots, NASA executives, NCAA and elite coaches, and culture architects (Hint: The Savannah Bananas) — to unpack what actually drives high performance under pressure.
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Host · Bang Up Good Leadership
This is not a doctoral-level lecture. It's real conversations with people who've actually done the work — and figured out what works.
Whether you lead a company, a classroom, a team, or a committee — great leadership has nothing to do with your title. It's about designing an environment that can thrive.
Everyone wants to be led by a Bang Up Good leader. And every leader can build a place people want to be AND a place that gets real results. You don't have to choose — it's all design.
Layne's leadership approach was not developed in theory. She built and tested it in one of the highest-stakes environments imaginable: a chronically failing, high-poverty school with the state's lowest rating. In five years, she and her team led a complete turnaround from F-rated to award-winning — becoming the most improved school in the state. Today, Layne serves as a state level administrator, supporting leadership in school improvement work.
Education is where she learned to lead. But this is not an education podcast — it's for any leader wanting to create a place where their people and performance thrive. Today, Layne brings these principles to organizations as a keynote speaker and leadership trainer, and through direct conversations with leaders operating at the highest levels on this podcast. The principles are universal. What works in a struggling school also works in a corporation, a hospital, or a nonprofit. When the environment is right, people and performance stop competing and start reinforcing each other.
Yes, she has a doctorate. No, this will not sound like a boring classroom!
